So, the marvellous Jeremy Waite posted a blog today about his life in 40 brands and it got me and few others on Twitter excited about the idea. So, I’ve spent my entire Sunday researching, speaking to my Mum and collection photos so that I can bring you my version, hope you like it and hope you spot some nostalgic things.

1988 Born: Year of the first ever computer virus, the first commercial email service and I was born, clearly destined to work in digital.

1989: Next- Apparently I was fussy with clothing quality and style from a very young age. Apparently my Mum would put me in denim and I would just take them off, the exact quote just now was “if I put you in jeans you would pee in them and said girls don’t wear jeans”. Mum tells me that I only would wear Next clothes, they’d buy perfectly nice things from Asda but I wouldn’t keep them on.

1990: Super Ted- Apparently one of my first words was “sup-ted-bit-min” in reference to the below. One of our favourite TV shows when I was tiny. I will always remember the Super Ted vitamins over anything else though, they were bear shaped and that weird powdery texture, can anyone else remember these?

1991: The Little Mermaid- Definitely my favourite Disney film, closely followed by Robin Hood. One of the only toys I can really, strongly remember pestering my parents for too was a Little Mermaid palace, to the point I my Mum actually used to bribe me to do stuff with promises of it. I never got it . However, I did have a Little Mermaid doll, with lots of different tails. I’m also thinking that this was a strong influence in my hair colour.

1992: Polly Pocket- Always one of my favourite toys, I had loads and use to arrange them to make streets. They aren’t so tiny anymore though, I think because so many people inserted Polly Pocket figures into ears and noses. Not cool.

1993: Barbie- Obviously.

1994: Tammy Girl- As a small child I would not wear denim, ever (see quote above). It wasn’t until I become a regular wearer of Tammy Girl that I started wearing denim. All of my clothes came from here. I remember slogan tees with cute animals on and wide flares with flowers embroidered of them.

1995: Dr. Martens- Because my Mum is super cool, me and my sister had floral Dr. Martens for schools shoes, exactly like these ones except with those elasticated springy laces, which was useful as I couldn’t tie shoe laces at all. I can now. I’d like to see these shoes as a start of a love of eccentric and alternative fashion.

1996: Freed- I did dance classes since I was tiny, mainly ballet, which was always my favourite. So it was about this age when I started taking my exams very, very seriously, to the point that I was actually working towards becoming a professional dancer! One of the things I’ve always loved about ballet is the uniforms and shoes and Freed of London were the first brand that I had in my dance kit.

1997: Lemmings & Theme Hospital- I didn’t have a games console for a very long time, but we always had a PC, so I used to play games on there. The two favourites were Lemmings and Theme Hospital, the first two computer games I played too.

1998: Star Wars- I’m from a family of geeks, so this one can’t be avoided. I can’t remember the exact year I saw the films for the first time, but we had them on VHS recorded off the TV and I used to make Jedi costumes for my Barbie dolls out of brown paper envelopes. I was a cool kid.

1999: Uniball Gel Pens- This was the year I started High School and I was obsessed with stationary, it was all about scented pens, especially the Uniball Signo ones. We had to write in black ink, so mine was Cola scented.

2000: Anne Rice- My teenage wannabe goth self spent most of my free time at High School hanging out in the library. I was a student librarian and read a lot. This was the year that my Mum introduced me to The Vampire Chronicles series by Anne Rice and started my love affair with the vampire genre, that lives on today.

2001: Lord of the Rings- Another obsession of mine which started with the books and The Lord of the Rings animation that was made in the 70’s, it was the movie franchise that made me the ultimate girl geek. I saw the first one 10 times in the cinema and learnt phrases in Elvish and how to write the script from the ring, I have great trivia of the films.

2002: Kerrang!- The first magazine I bought frequently that wasn’t a typical girly magazine. Kerrang introduced me to rock and metal music and fed my obsessions with Ville Valo from HIM, Dita Von Teese and Placebo. Unfortunately, my first ever gig was Evanescence, but I did see HIM and Placebo many times to make up for this.

2003: MySpace- My first ever foray into social media, which then led onto signing up to various others: ProfileNation, FaceParty, Bebo and lots of forums. I learnt my first ever HTML code from Myspace and post my first bunch of selfies. The start of something very important to my life, sounds sad, but it’s so true. I’ll always remember all of the headache inducing Myspace themes, I’m pretty sure I had this one at some point…

2004: The Sims 2- I’m sure I wasn’t the only teenage to waste a lot of hours on this game. In particular, finding creative ways to make them go mad or die, and of course, the cheat codes!

2005: Lush- The first beauty brand that I became obsessed with. I learn everything there is know about the brand via the Lush Times and the Lush Forum and go on to work for them for a short period at University. Lush teaches me about animal cruelty and other ethics issues in beauty. Nowadays they are a love/hate brand for me, wish they hadn’t discontinued Ma Bar and Sonic Death Monkey.

2006: Facebook- I’ve got to include all my social networks in this blog, as they’ve been such a big part of my life, which sounds totally lame, but I’m sure you’ll agree that social media has completely changed our world. I was so reluctant to join Facebook, what with my being a dedicated Myspace fan, but now I love it for sharing photos and keeping in touch with everyone.

2007: Nikon- This is the year that I get my first DSLR camera, to use as part of my degree course. It’s also the start of my dabbling in freelance photography and modelling. Getting my Nikon D40 started a lot of awesome stuff including being a burlesque photographer, creating content for blog and meeting so many awesome people via photography and modelling. Here’s one of my favourite photos that I took with this camera of burlesque performer Anna Fur Laxis…

2008: Illamasqua & Lime Crime- I couldn’t choose between the two for this one. This is the year that I start to get really excited about make up. Illamasqua launches and immediately catches my attention, appealing to my inner goth and love of creativity. I fall immediately in love with the girly, bright and holographic unicorns of Lime Crime and its founder Doe Deere and start to experiment with make up.

2009: WordPress- This is the year that I start my blog. Being a complete newbie to blogging, I set up on WordPress, I can’t remember why, but I’ve stuck with it the whole time. This is also the start of Jayne’s Kitschen and the awesome journey that my blog has taken me on. I’ve met so many people and had so many awesome opportunities as a result of setting up on WordPress in 2009.

2010: Swedish Fish- First trip to America in this year, enjoyed sampling American food and became addicted to Swedish Fish candy, which is really difficult to find and expensive in the UK.

2011: Starbucks- Moved to London and discovered Starbucks and it’s Chai Tea Lattes. A minor one, but I thought I’d throw it in since they are my coffee shop of choice.

2012: Ping Pong- I used to be SO fussy with food, but in the past year I’ve become more adventurous. It was Dim Sum that helped my try new things. Sounds lame, but for me it’s a big deal that I can now go and eat pretty much anywhere.

Phew! That took longer than expected, hope you liked it!

Would love to read your comments and tweets to find out if we share any of the same brand love.

Oh my! What a fantastic idea – your post has actually made me quite nostalgic because we share many of the same brand loves (can you call it that??). I went though a HUGE Anne Rice phase when I was about 15 and the sims actually probably took up most of 2001 for me lol I may have to carry this idea on and do one for my blog – I will link back to your original post 🙂 Kate x